Aveiro (PT), Samouco (PT), Lisbon (PT)2023A project with Inês Coelho da Silva, Joana ViveirosSeries of residencies, public programmesRua das Gaivotas 6, Quinta das Relvas, Goethe Institute Contemporânea.INTRODUCTION
A Salt Anthology is a poetic reflection on the relationships that make up the ecosystems of Portuguese salt pans. By focusing on the current fragile state of the salt marshes of Aveiro and Samouco (PT), once amongst the most productive in Europe, Inês Coelho da Silva, Joana Viveiros, and I composed an organic body of work that reflects on materials, ideas, and stories of the land. Studying salt, algae, rushes, mud, samphire, and much more, the exhibition is framed as a collection of visual stories in which scientific knowledge blends with craft and speculation. A creative text accompanies the exploration, proposing unexpected poetic readings of the artworks and the immersive experience (the smell of mud, the pink algae-inspired colour of the walls). As a result, ideas circulate freely among the objects, sensations, and narrations, inviting the audience to delve into the evident and hidden references scattered throughout the gallery. During the show, several natural processes gradually transform the artworks, embracing the symbolic and ethical dimension of slow practices of craft and care over capitalistic velocity and disruption. The exhibition features various artistic representations, such as a tablecloth that symbolises the topography of saltworks in bird view, bones and branches arranged as unreadable writings, and woven rushes as speculative containers of ideas. As artworks and curatorial tales narrate the hidden journey of sea salt and its origin, land and imagination reveal to speak interchangeable languages.
ResidencyPart 01Aveiro (PT)Quinta das RelvasResidencyPart 02Samouco (PT)Rua das Gaivotas 6Exhibition, public programmePart 03Lisbon (PT)Rua das Gaivotas 6